“Like the Phoenix rising from its ashes, art is reborn into eternity." Martin Mobarak
"I hope the leaving is joyful, and I hope never to return."
Frida Kahlo
Being surprised by atrocities is a good thing. It means your soul is still intact. While the phenomenon of postmodern desecration is nothing new, to date it has always limited itself to at least puking in its own lap. It has never cared whether or not the puke splatters on everything within its own self-important splash radius, but it has never actually destroyed the works of art it is trying to discredit and replace.
Until now.
There is very little to say about this story. It speaks, or rather pukes, for itself. The vomit is now incarnate. It no longer needs to be regurgitated from the stinking depths of the fake, wannabe artist. Now, the vomit simply is. The puke is now a being, a squid-like, intestinal body with arms and eyes and legs, and an artificial soul. Even the robot artist Ai-Da has been programmed to make an attempt at interpretive beauty, however tired her programmed form may be. But the destruction of an original work of art by Frida Kahlo entitled "Sinister Ghosts" is just abhorrent.
From Fridanft.org:
On July 30th, 2022, history was made by Frida.nft & CEO Martin Mobarak when Martin burned his $10M rare art piece by Frida Kahlo, to transform and revolutionize the Art, NFT, Charity Worlds, and Health Sector. This profound act was done for unfortunate and sick children, battered women and other less fortunate around the world to receive hope.
Frida Kahlo became immortalized in NFT form. Her art that is now shared around the world has created donations that will continue to grow in perpetuity.
“I am proud to say this event will solve some of the worlds biggest problems in honor of Frida Kahlo.”
Being an artist isn't good enough, you see. We don't honor our artists by appreciating their original, idiosyncratic work, we "honor" them by destroying their work to "solve some of the world's biggest problems."
It's not the beauty or originality that matters, it's solving problems. Because the world is a math book, and we are mere equations. Beauty and contemplation are for idlers and wastoids. What we really are is a population of numbers, waiting to be solved.
“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.”
Oscar Wilde
I can't stand the sight of the Metaverse pushers and apologists pretending their digital zoo cage full of smiling cartoon idiots is in some way appealing to... anyone... but if you need to destroy a $10M piece of artwork to turn it into an Intangible Fungus Token, for the transparent, ostensible "benefit" of the "less fortunate," turning a now-priceless original into digital ashes that "everyone can enjoy," you have brought levels of human self-awareness to new, unbelievable lows.
I'm not sure which sickens me more, the sanctimony, or the exclusivity. I remember reading about Wall Street guys who would order hamburgers garnished with real gold leaf, and thinking, man, that's crazy. If nothing else, at least the Gold-Eaters of Wall Street weren't presuming to make the world a better place with their exclusive, hedonistic behaviour.
This guy in Miami, however, is destroying million-dollar works of original, irreplaceable art.... for people less fortunate than himself.
The lesson is clear, to everyone but him and his sycophants, surely:
As Oscar Wilde observed, art and original, tactile work of any and every kind is worthless. Since we are apparently incapable of appreciating it for its true value (spiritual? aesthetic? unique?), we must therefore exercise our exclusive, self-ordained right to destroy this unique work of useless art and "immortalize" it into fake, digital ashes that exist only as long as the electric grid is stable, so that we can turn an original work of brilliance by an irreplaceable genius into "donations" for people who aren't rich enough to burn something more valuable than a literal 10-million-dollar bill in a giant martini glass full of mouthwash and dry ice.
How benevolent of us.
Aren't we great?
Now, no one can enjoy standing in front of the original work and contemplating it between themselves and their own private, non-fungible thoughts. Now, we have to enter the new, improved, "immersive" world of digitally-enhanced, living, breathing depictions of formerly-original paintings, and pretend it's "better" than the so-called "real thing."
According to Mexico Daily Post,
"For his project, [Martin Mobarak] digitized the artwork front and back in PNG format, to preserve as much fidelity as possible. Subsequently, it converted the file into an NFT and generated 10,000 pieces of blockchain code, each with a unique content record that ensures its authenticity."
Why settle for a grainy notebook that was actually used by a one-of-a-kind artistic genius, when you can "own" a paradox as glaring as a "unique content record" to "ensure the authenticity" of your fake, inauthentic purchase? Also, if your fidelity is so weak that it has to be digitally preserved, perhaps it's time to reconsider the purpose of your life?
I talk about it enough that you could probably throw a rock in the general direction of my writing and hit a paragraph that contains the problems inherent in replacing priceless, irreplaceable art with cheap, infinitely-reproduceable "content," but this paragraph from the article Good Art vs. Sick Content is a good place to start:
Content creators have an agenda; artists are engaged in the process of discovery. Creators of content are factory workers; artists are panning for gold. Artists experience the revealing of the work before their eyes much like a child opening a Christmas present; content creators produce material for consumption (including by themselves).
The two are opposites.
It's a tangent, and I've said it a million times, but it bears repeating:
I have never seen a "content sandwich" on any menu anywhere, with the possible exception of a high school cafeteria. I have never attended a "content gallery;" even the fake, postmodern content galleries call themselves "art galleries," since no one would want to see their content if they knew it wasn't art. So why am I expected to care about the "content" produced by someone for whom the title "artist" isn't satisfactory, to the point that they must bestow upon themselves the absurd, self-important title, "creator?" And why isn't the title "artist" good enough for them? Is it because they are the enemies of originality and art, and their ego as wannabe creators is more important than the work they produce?
It is. And like the titular Sinister Ghosts depicted in the now-destroyed work of art by Frida Kahlo, they will burn. At their own hands, even.
It's ridiculously apropos. As though to cleanse his conscience like a postmodern Dorian Gray, Mr. Mobarak burned a work of art called "Sinister Ghosts." Sinister Ghosts have burned, and will "continue to burn in perpetuity," like the growth of the donations he believes he is creating.
He just signed his own damnation warrant. Not only without knowing it, but for the benefit of the "less fortunate."
If he had any idea how unfortunate he was, he would make the world a better place and burn his money instead. Or, better yet, since utility is king, give it all away.
Fortunately, there is pushback.
From Mexico Daily Post,
"Within the Mexican legal framework, there is a decree by which all of Kahlo’s work was declared an artistic monument and, in a statement reproduced by local media, the entity recalled that in Mexico “the deliberate destruction of an artistic monument constitutes a crime in terms of the Federal Law on Monuments and Archaeological, Artistic and Historical Zones”.
However, the businessman chose to defend himself by arguing that thanks to having burned the drawing, the national heritage will grow. According to his estimates, the NFTs will be bought through ETH (Ethreum), a cryptocurrency worth $1,361, and each NFT will be sold for 3 ETH, raising more than about $40 million."
Since we've already established the fact that this guy thinks "the national heritage" is a number on a balance sheet, and that "growth" can only be measured in financial terms, let's find out what the actual numbers in the equation think. Fortunately, it isn't even necessary to pick and choose from the comments in the video posted above. You can take a screenshot of entire swaths of the comment section and repost it without editing.
Let's scroll down to the next block:
Well alrighty then.
I guess there's hope.
Sorry anyway, Frida. It wasn't much of a secret, but now we know with certainty why you were looking forward to your exit. Whether your leaving was joyful or not, I wouldn't want to come back to this over-immersive virtual unreality either.
Descansa en paz, genia torturada.
